


when the sun came up (i was looking at you)

by obsessivelymoody



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Pennywise (IT), Childhood Memories, F/F, Marijuana, Pining, Underage Smoking, Useless Lesbians
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-01
Updated: 2020-03-01
Packaged: 2021-02-28 06:28:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,364
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22965427
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/obsessivelymoody/pseuds/obsessivelymoody
Summary: Edie's always wanted to run, but her mother doesn't want her to join Derry's high school track team. She also has a massive, hidden and possibly unrequited crush on her best friend, Richie.But one sleepover changes everything.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 17
Kudos: 77





	when the sun came up (i was looking at you)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [t_hens](https://archiveofourown.org/users/t_hens/gifts).



> For Tobie <3 HAPPY BIRTHDAY!! You're one of my best friends, one of the people who keep me sane and grounded, and just a really fucking important part of my life. I love you, and I hope you like this <3
> 
> Big thanks to Cait and Julie for cheering me on and telling me to keep going ily both <3

A wash of gold brushes over Derry as the sun rises brightly. Edie squints at it, scraping her hair back into a ponytail. 

It’s really quite pretty, she thinks, kicking at the worn polyurethane under her feet. But she doesn’t have time for pretty views right now; it’s the sun she plans to race against after all. 

She takes a breath in, placing the toe of her sneaker on the edge of the white line in front of her. On her out breath, she bounces lightly on the balls of her feet. On the next breath in, she runs.

It feels like liquid euphoria, she thinks, to run and warm her muscles and feel her feet slap against the track. She could get drunk and high and every kind of inebriated on the feeling, it’s just so _nice_. 

As she rounds the last corner, she can see Mike waiting for her at the finish line. He’s smiling when she reaches him, dressed in his Derry High School Track hoodie and shorts. Mike holds her water bottle out for her. She takes it, nodding in thanks. 

“Nice form, Kaspbrak.”

She laughs. “You’re late, Mikey.” 

“Got caught up at home,” he shrugs. “Better late than never?”

“True that. Warm up?”

Mike nods, both of them getting on the ground to stretch.

“So,” Mike says after a moment, looking at her from under his arm. “Have you thought more on joining the team this year?”

Edie shakes her head. “You know I’d love to, it’s just…”

“She won’t budge, huh?” 

_She_ being Edie’s mother, who worries about her lungs and her apparent fragile state of being more than anything else. Edie’s mother who thinks she leaves for school early to tutor freshman English when she’s really meeting Mike on the track every morning. 

“No, and like. I don’t know Mike, I don’t want to hurt her. She’s only trying to do what’s best for me.”

He nods. “I know. Sometimes, you gotta do stuff for yourself though, Edie. Mom didn’t want me to stop homeschooling but I’m here now, and we’re both happier.”

Edie stares down at her legs. Mike doesn’t get it. He means well, but he doesn’t get it, and she doesn’t think he ever will. She’ll try for him. She’ll ask her mom for him, because she loves him and because she wants this too. But the thought makes her panic, her mother’s disappointed tone already ringing through her mind. 

“You know I’m not doing this to pressure you, Edie, I just want you to be happy.”

She lays a hand on his shin. “I know that Mikey, and I love you for it. It’s just hard.”

Hard to know what you want and to always be pushed away from it.

“Speaking of hard,” Mike says with a coy smile. “How’s Richie?”

“What the fuck do you mean ‘how’s Richie’, Michael?” 

He raises his hands up in defense. “I’m just—”

“How’s Bill?” She fires back. 

“Not fair, I asked you first!”

Edie gives him a dirty look. “Asshole, I’m like three seconds away from kicking your ass.”

“So things are good then?”

“As good as they can be in Derry fucking Maine,” she says. “I haven’t told her anything, if that’s what you’re asking. I—you know how it is, Mike.”

She knows he does. Because no one knows about _them_ except for each other. Hell, they started running together because of it. 

Edie used to run on her own until Mike had the same idea last semester, wanting to get in practice for track. Edie runs to clear her head, to ground herself, because—well, because some days are much shittier than others. 

Two days after starting their routine together, Edie broke down. 

Her mom wouldn’t stop going off about the Tracker Brothers being “dirty queers” and giving Edie instructions on how to steer clear of them, and other men like them. Sonia did this everyday for a week until Edie eventually lost it on the track field. 

Mike comforted her, told her about himself and about his feelings for Bill and how much going to church every week was like salt in a wound. 

And it felt good, a terrifying kind of good, to tell him how she feels about Richie and about herself. 

“For what it’s worth,” Mike had said when she calmed down enough. “I’m pretty sure Richie’s a lesbian.”

Edie punched him in the shoulder, but laughed anyway. Next to Richie, Mike seemed to always know how to make her laugh.

“Well,” Mike says now. “At least we have each other?”

“Oh yeah Mike, let’s test to see what my mother finds worse, me bringing home a girl or a gay black guy.” 

Mike laughs loudly. “Never change, Edie.”

She smiles at him. “You warm enough, Mikey? C’mon, let’s run. I have a bio lab this morning.” 

Getting up, Edie offers him a hand. He takes it, hugging her as he gets up. 

She hugs him back, a warmth spreading through her chest. 

Over Mike’s shoulder, the sun is a bright orange gold against the pure, pale blue sky.

*

Edie taps the end of her pencil against her desk, thinking on how to answer the next part of her biology lab assignment. 

She doesn’t know how long she sits there, tapping a steady beat with the little pink eraser, when an accompanying rhythm joins it, wood slapping against plastic. Plastic that happens to make up the back of her chair. 

“Do you fucking mind?” She seethes, twisting in her chair to look at Richie behind her. 

Richie just smirks, continuing to smack her own pencil against Edie’s seat. Black curls fall into her eyes as she tilts her head, smirk widening. Edie tries not to stare at her long, smooth pale neck.

So she sighs, rolling her eyes and turning back to her paper. She gets maybe two full seconds of thought to herself before Richie starts talking. 

“So Eds I think we should have a classic Tozier-Kaspbrak Sleepover this weekend. My place, of course.”

Edie turns back around. “Don’t call me that. And um, I’ll have to ask my mom.” 

Richie nods. “‘Course. So like, after school today? I can pick you up.” 

“Yeah I—”

“Edith and Rachel,” Their teacher calls. “Quit the chatter and get back to your assignments.” 

Edie’s mouth snaps shut and she tosses a glare at Richie. She just smiles, mouthing _yeah?_ , making Edie roll her eyes again but nod. 

_Something to look forward to_ , she thinks, putting her pencil back to the page. 

*

“Ma?” Edie calls when she gets home after school. 

“Ediebear? That you?”

She walks into the living room, seeing her mom sat in her La-Z-Boy, exactly where she left her this morning. “Hi Mommy.”

“Come sit with me, sweetheart.” 

Sucking a breath in, Edie puts on her best face. Her perfect daughter face, the one she’s refined over years of having to lie to her mother about where she’s going, what she wants to do, who she’s been with.

Edie drops her bag in the doorway, making her way over to the couch. She gives her mom a kiss before she sits down.

“Whatcha watching, Ma?” 

“ _Cheers_ , but it’s on commercials,” she says, patting Edie’s shoulder as if she were thanking her for asking. 

“Reruns?” Sonia nods. “Okay, well I wanted to ask you something, Ma.”

“Yes, Ediebear?”

“Can I stay at the Denbrough’s tonight? Bill wants to have a movie night with the whole gang there and—”

“Is that appropriate, Edie?” Sonia turns down the TV. 

Edie expects this. The tone in her mother’s voice changes into something that cuts deep and familiar, and Edie acts quickly.

“Mom—”

She sighs.

“ _Mom_ ,” Edie says quickly. “Beverly and Rachel will be there too. It’s not just me and Bill, and Bill’s parents are going to be home.”

Sonia’s eyes narrow. “You know I don’t like those girls, Edie. You know I don’t want you to hang out with girls like them.”

She looks down at her lap. “They’re my friends, Ma.” 

“Let me talk to Mrs. Denbrough,” she says. “Dial me the phone.” 

Edie gets up, walking into the kitchen. Nerves course through her as she dials Richie’s number.

Thankfully, Richie is the one to pick up. “Derry City Morgue, you stab 'em, we slab 'em.”

 _Fucking moron_.

“Hello Mrs. Denbrough! This is Edie Kaspbrak.”

“Oh. Hang on, Edie.” Richie clears her throat.

“Yeah, so about the movie night tonight, is it okay if my Mom talks to you about it?”

“Of course, sweetie, put her on for me,” Richie says, doing her best Sharon Denbrough. 

Edie would never tell her, but it’s always been awfully convincing. 

“Ma?” she calls, holding the receiver to her chest. “Mrs. Denbrough is on the phone for you!”

Sonia gets up, making her way to Edie with a pinched look on her face. She hands her mother the phone, going back to the living room. _Cheers_ is back on. 

She listens to her mother’s end of Richie’s sweet talking, listens to her laugh politely and her tone lift into something very soft. Her heart races through the whole phone call, but eventually she hears the phone click back onto the hook.

“You can go,” Sonia says when she comes back into the living room. “But you have to promise me to be back before noon tomorrow.” 

“Thank you Mommy,” Edie says, standing to give her a hug. “I promise! I won’t let you down. I haven’t yet.”

Sonia smiles at her, and Edie turns to grab her bag from the doorway. 

“And Edie?” 

She stops in the doorway, turning back. “Yeah Ma?” 

“I’ll feel much better when you find some real, better friends.” Her mother smiles, and something drops in the pit of her stomach. 

Edie smiles back shakily, and runs up to her room, needing to get a start on packing for tonight. 

It’s not the first time she’s heard it, and it won’t be the last, but that doesn’t stop her from feeling like she’s going to puke everywhere.

Or worse, punch something.

*

Richie picks her up at 4:30.

She gives her mom a kiss before she leaves. 

“I’ll know if you come back any _different_ ,” her mother says before she steps out, as she always does. Edie just nods. 

“Alright my fair lady,” Richie says when she’s buckled in. “To the Blockbuster we go!”

Edie rolls her eyes, but feels a tightness in her chest she hadn’t realised was there start to fade.

*

They leave Blockbuster with Richie’s backpack filled to the brim with movies Edie’s mother would never approve of. Too crude, too scary, too _masculine_ , too _unbecoming_. 

Edie doesn’t care, though. She’s seen all of these movies at least five times; two summers ago she laid on her belly next to Richie, curating a list of “Edie & Richie’s All Time Super Amazing Movies”, rotating through the titles every time they have a sleepover. 

“We should start with _Stand By Me_ tonight,” Richie says as they pull into her driveway. 

“Oh yeah? And who says you get to call all the shots?”

Richie lets out a booming witch’s cackle as they get out of the car that makes Edie jump out of her skin. 

“My house, my rules my pretty!” She cackles again and Edie rolls her eyes. 

“Fuck off with that Voice, Richie, I almost shit myself.” She slams the car door. 

Richie blows a raspberry. “Alright sugar, but don’t think I don’t know you best, and _know_ you want to watch _Stand By Me_ first.”

She isn’t wrong and it makes Edie furious, slining the bag of tapes over her shoulder and marching to the front door. Keys jingling in her hand, Richie follows her. 

“Do you not want me to know you best, Eds?” Her tone is soft, lacking any hint of a Voice, as she unlocks the door. It makes Edie hesitate, her heart starting to beat out of her chest. 

It’s not that Richie isn’t ever serious. No, especially not when they’re alone. It’s that there’s an ache in Edie’s chest that she doesn’t let herself explain or justify, because of course she wants Richie to know her best just—not in a way she wants to admit. 

She swallows. “Of course I do, we’re best friends.”

They walk into the house, starting up the stairs to Richie’s room. Richie turns back, smiling. 

“The bestest?” 

“The bestest.” Edie nods, and as Richie turns back around, running up the stairs with as much grace as a hippo, something twists in her stomach. 

*

“Come sit on my roof with me? While I have a smoke?”

Edie looks up from the comic in her lap. She’s ready to protest, not interested in secondhand smoke or Richie destroying her lungs further with those cancer sticks, but the words die in her mouth when her gaze focuses on Richie. She’s smirking, holding a tightly rolled joint between her fingers. The Cure sounds out softly from Richie’s tape player.

“Where’d you get that?” 

“Big Bill, of course,” she says, still smirking. 

_Oh, of course_. 

“Well?” Richie asks, and Edie just nods. 

Richie moves fast, her long legs covering the space of her bedroom in only two steps. She climbs through the window, and Edie pretends not to watch her jean-clad ass from where it currently sticks out of the window. 

_There’s nothing wrong with looking_ , Edie tells herself. _You’re just jealous. You want legs like hers, you want to move like she does, take up space like she does._

She shakes her head, climbing through the window. 

It’s still bright outside, the early fall sun setting with stripes of orange and dark pink across the sky.

Richie sits with her knees pulled to her chest, fiddling with a lighter. Edie holds down the back of her skirt and sits cross legged next to her. 

“Can’t get the fucking thing to catch,” she mumbles around the joint between her lips. 

She takes the lighter from Richie and flicks it. It catches, and Richie curses her, leaning forward to light the joint. Edie watches her take a hit, blowing the thick smoke up into the sky. 

“What?” Richie asks, turning to her. Traces of smoke still trail from her mouth, and Edie hopes to god her face doesn’t look as hot as it suddenly feels. 

She holds out the lighter. “Uh?” 

“Oh.” Richie takes it, shoving it in her back pocket. “Thanks.” 

Edie nods, looking out in front of her. She listens to Richie smoke, looking out at the Tozier’s backyard, and where their neighbour’s fences connect to theirs. 

The Tozier’s lawn could use trimming, she notes, seeing the way they grass leans and bunches together in a way the surrounding, shorter lawns don’t. 

Eventually her eyes rest on the little circle of dirt in the corner of the lawn. There used to be a tree there, a big spruce that Richie would race Edie to climb when they were kids. But the best part of that tree was the tire swing Mr. Tozier had put in shortly after they entered the third grade. 

Bill and Stan would hang off of it, watching Richie and Edie bicker as they tried to see who could climb the highest. (Stan always kept track, and Edie almost always won.)

Later, Bev would join them and show them all who could _really_ climb the highest, and Ben would always give everyone the best pushes in the swing. Edie started to sit with Mike, watching Richie climb all over everyone to get far more than the agreed upon turns on the swing. 

When they were fourteen, Edie and Beverly came over the most, Richie sprawled on the grass while the other girls took turns sitting on the swing. 

“Boys are fucking stupid,” Richie would say. “Assholes can’t even be bothered to come over.” 

Edie and Bev knew that wasn’t exactly it, and knowing Richie was well aware of that too. It didn’t make it sting any less, though. 

The summer before junior year—almost a year ago now—Richie’s elderly neighbour, Mrs. Mitchell, complained to Derry Public Works that they needed to take that tree down before a wind storm blows it into her house. 

“Mrs. Bitchell can fuck right off,” Richie had said. “That tree is perfectly fine.” 

The tree, however, was not actually perfectly fine. There were spots of rot running through the inside, and while Mrs. Mitchell’s house would have been fine for another five or ten years, eventually the tree would have done some damage. 

The Losers came over the day the tree came down. 

They watched from Richie’s kitchen table, faces solemn as city workers bundled up chunks of the tree.

“You kids are so dramatic,” Maggie Tozier had said, handing them all glasses of lemonade. “There will be more important things than trees in your lives.” 

“No there won’t be, Mom,” Richie replied. “That tree is everything. You know, we were gonna get married? That tree was my whole world. My fiancé. The love of my _life_.” 

Richie threw herself onto the table, sobbing loudly. Stan snickered and Mrs. Tozier rolled her eyes as she walked out of the room. 

The tree was no underground clubhouse, but Edie longs for it, looking at that patch of dirt. Her mother never breathed down her neck at the Tozier’s when she was a kid, and there was something safe about sitting in that tire, the scent of sweet bark and sun-warmed rubber around her. 

She misses when all the Losers were hanging out together, too. All the time, all of them, constant enough that the seven of them were practically joined at the hip.

Richie moves, sneakers scraping against the roof tiles, and it draws Edie’s gaze from the yard.

She’s on her back now, head turned and looking at Edie. Curls fall across her face, and she stretches her arm out, offering Edie the joint. 

Edie swallows, taking it from her. She brings it to her lips, asmatic lungs be damned, and smokes it. 

Edie can count on one hand how many times she’s smoked. Weed only, of course, she’d never risk putting literal battery acid in her lungs from a cigarette. Always with Richie too, and once with Beverly and Bill.

It’s soothing, letting her mind and body slow for a bit. She likes letting the world soften around her, likes the tenderness that comes from her friends when they’re high. 

The tenderness that comes from Richie. 

She takes another hit, laying down against the roof next to Richie as she blows out the smoke. It hasn’t taken effect yet, but she can already feel her muscles loosen, shoulders and brows relaxing first. 

“Better?” Richie asks softly when Edie passes back the blunt.

For a split second, Edie wants to cry. Richie can read her well. Too well. Well enough to know that she’s tense enough to need a smoke without Edie realizing it herself first. 

“Better.” She confirms. 

*

"Alright," Richie says, dragging herself off the ground to rewind _Stand By Me_. "What's next, Edie my love? _Back To The Future_? _Karate Kid_?" 

Edie throws an arm over her eyes. “I don’t care. Whatever.”

They’re sat on the floor in the Tozier’s basement, a pack of red vines and a bowl of doritos between them. Edie feels warm, a little dozy from the weed. She’s definitely stoned, feeling heavy and weightless at the same time. 

Richie looks back at her. Edie looks at the TV, watching the movie in reverse. She thinks it might be interesting to hear the sound in reverse, too. Maybe she should ask Richie to slow the rewind down. 

"You okay, Eds?" 

She focuses back on Richie, who looks at her with a furrowed brow, concern in her eyes. 

Richie has nice lips, Edie thinks. A dusty rose and full, her top lip forming a deep cupid's bow. They look soft, and well taken care of.

"Eds?"

"'M fine, Richie Rich." She smiles, sitting up. 

Richie laughs. "Forgot, you're so small everything hits you much harder."

"Fuck you," she leans forward, smacking her leg. "I'm 5'2, that's perfectly average. Not my problem you're a 5'9 giant."

"Alright, you little gremlin." She turns back to the TV, hovering her finger over the eject button on the VCR. 

Edie pouts, crawling forward to grab RIchie’s shoulders and scare her. Richie, though, is faster—probably because Edie is high and clumsy and loud. She turns, knocking Edie to the ground. Richie hovers over her, hands on either side of her shoulders. 

Time seems to stop for a moment. A rational part of Edie’s brain knows it’s because she’s high, but the rest of her seems to take this as an opportunity. Her heart pounds, echoing loudly in her ears, as she raises a hand to Richie’s face. 

Her chin is soft, softer than Edie could have ever imagined, as she cups it. And her lips—god her _lips_. She runs her thumb over her bottom lip, marvelling in the way Richie parts her lips, warm breath brushing over her thumb. 

And Richie—Richie _leans into her_. She presses her face into Edie’s hand, and for a moment, her eyes flutter closed. Then, there’s a hand in Edie’s hair, long fingers threading through the thick strands and brushing down until Richie’s gentle hand lands on her throat, fingertips against her jaw. 

Richie lightly walks her fingers across Edie’s neck, lifting her hand up to clasp around Edie’s on her face. 

It feels like barely even a second has passed when Richie takes her hand from her face. “I think we should go upstairs.” 

Something cracks in Edie’s chest. 

Richie gives her this polite kind of smile that sobers her up, and rolls off her, grabbing the snacks from the floor. She turns the TV off with her foot, looking back down at Edie. There’s something akin to fear in her eyes. 

“You don’t—” she whispers. “You don’t have to come but—”

Edie sits up then, fast enough to make her head spin. Richie watches her as she stands up slowly, and grabs the red vines. Richie opens her mouth, then promptly closes it, instead nodding to the stairs in the corner. 

Edie just motions for her to lead the way.

*

Buddy Holly plays softly when they enter Richie’s room. 

It’s dark, the sun having gone down hours ago now, but Richie only switches on the small night light in the corner. 

The snacks go on Richie’s desk, and Edie watches her from the doorway, making a beeline for her bedside table, opening the drawer with the false bottom and grabbing her cigarettes. 

Richie parks herself on the open window sill, carefully angling her face outside as she lights her smoke. 

Edie clears her throat. “Those will kill you, fuckwad.” 

Blowing smoke out the window, Richie turns to look at her. Her left leg bounces rapidly. 

“I can think of a bunch of other things that’ll kill me faster.” 

In the dim light, Edie thinks Richie’s eyes are shining. She lets herself walk further into the room now, lets herself sit on the edge of Richie’s bed, as close as she can get to her. She lets herself watch Richie look away, suck the life out of her cigarette. 

Neither of them speak. Edie fiddles with the hem on her skirt. 

The song comes to an end and the player clicks. Whatever tape Richie was playing ended, and now the room fills with a deafening silence. 

Richie leans out the window and stubs out her cigarette on the roof. She tucks the butt back into the pack, finally looking at Edie again. 

“I just—” She sets the pack of cigarettes down next to her. “My parents, you know? I didn’t want them to, uh, you know.”

 _Oh_.

Edie doesn’t know what to say, or even where to start. Richie seems to take her silence as something bad, and hops off the window sill. 

“You know what? Let’s just go to bed. I shouldn’t have—”

Richie breaks off when Edie grabs the hem of her shirt, pulling it over her head and discarding it on the floor. She stands up, peeling off her socks and stepping out of her skirt. Her cheeks heat as she watches Richie look at her. 

It’s nothing she hasn’t seen already of Edie in locker rooms, and there’s nothing special about her pale pink matching cotton underwear set, but Richie looks at her so gently, so unapologetically. Edie feels like her heart is about to crawl up into her throat. 

“What, uh—” Richie whispers. 

“I’m getting ready for bed,” Edie says, and turns to crawl onto her side of the bed. 

She doesn’t get under the covers, just sits on them, legs stretched out in front of her. Richie shakes her head, then unbuttons her jeans. 

Her underwear is bright blue, patterned with dark blue hearts and—oh and the further Richie pushes her jeans down Edie can see she’s wearing boxer shorts. Her stomach flutters, and she feels like looking away, suddenly feeling very bad about looking, but Richie shrugs out of her faded flannel. 

Edie stares at her hips, all soft curves and milky pale, as she takes off her shirt. Her bra is black, and she’s reminded that despite the oversized clothes Richie favours, she’s much curvier than Edie. 

She hears Richie suck in a breath, but before she can think anything of it she’s climbing over Edie—bare legs skimming over her own, giving Edie goosebumps—and settling on the other side of the bed. 

They sit next to each other, backs resting against Richie’s headboard, not saying anything. The silence makes Edie fucking crazy. 

“Are you really wearing _socks_ to bed?” Edie asks finally. “Are you a fucking serial killer?” 

A beat passes where Edie thinks she probably said the wrong thing, but Richie picks up what she put down. 

“Oh fuck you Kaspbrak, let a girl keep her fucking toes warm!” 

Edie turns onto her side, staring Richie in the face. In the dimly lit room her eyes look like a fucking kaleidoscope of colours. Edie wants to melt in them. “Do you know how unhygienic it is to sleep in socks you’ve been wearing all fucking day, just walking around in? And! And I’ve seen your shoes, Richie! They’re a fucking disaster! You’re fucking up your feet AND making them smell, I—”

“You know, you may have a point Eds,” Richie says. “But you know what else I think?”

“What else, Richie?” 

She looks down, picking at a loose thread in her duvet. “I think I’m cold and I think I want a call a Double Bag.” 

Edie thinks she’s going to fucking die right now. It’s been a long time since Richie called a Double Bag. Even longer since Edie’s done it. 

When they were seven, the Uris’s took all the Losers camping for Stan’s birthday weekend.

They had two tents—girls and boys separated, which Edie still thinks played a large role in why her mom let her go—and it rained all weekend and it was _horrible_. Stan didn’t get to see of the birds he was looking forward to spotting, and Edie remembers Mrs. Uris wiping tears from his little face as they packed up on Sunday morning. 

The rain made it cold, the first night being the worst, Edie turned to see Richie as awake as her in the middle of the night. 

“We should double bag it,” Richie had whispered. 

“What?” 

“Open our sleeping bags and push them together,” Richie said like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “Huddle for warmth. Like penguins.”

Edie was quick to unzip her bag and scooch close to Richie. Without even discussing it, Richie turned over and Edie wrapped her arms around her. It felt natural, _right_ , and it kept them warm all night. 

Ever since then when they were sleeping over together, they could call for a Double Bag. It became their thing, just for them to keep each other warm and get through the night. 

Only, Edie thinks the last time they did it they must’ve been no older than twelve. It makes something bubble in her chest and fill her throat with cotton. 

“Okay,” she croaks, and Richie takes off her glasses, turning over.

Hesitantly, Edie places an arm around her torso. The skin there is soft, probably softer than her chin was, but not quite as soft as her lips, and Edie likes the way her arm neatly tucks into the dip of her waist. Lightly, she pulls Richie against her, gently tucking her knees against the backs of her thighs. 

She rests her head near Richie’s on the pillow as Richie lifts her arm up, laying it on top of Edie’s around her waist. She laces their fingers together. Edie feels like her heart is going to beat out of her fucking chest. 

Richie smells a bit like cigarettes, and sweet. Sweet like the weed they smoked earlier and sweet like candy. Edie thinks she could get high again on just that.

Richie wiggles a little, probably trying to find a more comfortable position. It sends electric jolts up and down Edie’s body where their skin rubs together, and she melodramatically thinks she’s going to die right now. 

But Richie settles and Edie moves her head closer to hers, and they lay together, listening to their breaths syncing up.

“Just gonna change the topic like that, Tozier?” Edie says into her hair eventually. 

She shrugs. “I said I was cold. Aren’t you? I left the window open and—” Richie hums when she breaks off. 

“And what?” She asks softly. 

“And I can feel you against my back,” Richie’s tone matches hers. “Are you cold, Edie?”

Edie couldn’t be warmer. Every part of her body feels like it’s fucking on fire, and suddenly she’s aware of how hard her nipples are. Her bra isn’t very thick, either. 

“No.” Her throat feels tight. She squeezes her eyes shut, waiting for Richie to push her off, to say something to make her leave, to just do something that will break her. 

Richie pushes back into her. “I like that. And you’re like a little furnace. It’s nice.”

She sighs contently at that, and Edie relaxes. Relaxes enough to say part of something she’s wanted to tell Richie for years—at least, not in these words, but Richie’s smart. She’s so fucking smart and Edie knows she’ll get it. (At least, she hopes.) 

“Well, I’ll be your furnace for as long as you’ll have me.” 

Richie hums. “I’d freeze time forever, if I could.”

Edie tucks her head against Richie’s neck. 

Forever sounds fucking nice. 

*

Sun shines hot and piercing against Edie’s face. She blinks against it, rolling away from the window. She’s met with a mouthful of wild black curls and a pale, freckled shoulder. 

Something pulls in her chest, and Edie is reminded of the night before. Of Richie’s pale skin in the dim room, of her arm on Edie’s while she clutches her to her body. Of cigarette smoke and something sweeter. 

The sun hits her back hotly, and after a moment of hesitation she wraps her arm back around Richie’s waist. 

Richie makes a low noise from the back of her throat, vibrating through the two of them. Edie strokes tiny circles against her stomach with her thumb. 

“You cold, Eds?” Her voice is husky, practically half asleep.

“Don’t call me that. Don’t start my Saturday like this.”

She clumsily pats Edie’s arm. “If you say so, Eds.” 

A bird chirps near the window and Edie closes her eyes. Its song fades as it presumably flies further away from Richie’s window, and she briefly thinks of Stan. 

She misses him. They don’t see each other nearly as often as they used to. 

“Edie, tell me something,” Richie says. “Anything. Just fill the fucking silence. Player’s too far for me to put in a tape without getting up.”

“Miss Tozier, I am afraid to inform you that you’re suffering from chronic laziness.” 

“I’ll fucking kick you out of the bed. Don’t fucking try me.” 

Edie laughs. “Sure, Rich.”

Richie does kick her then, lifting her leg and smacking her heel against Edie’s ankle. “Just tell me something.” 

“Asshole,” she murmurs. “Fine.”

She wracks her brain, trying to think of something to say. She chooses, eventually, the thing she thinks about most. 

“I think I’m going to join the track team,” she whispers. 

“Yeah?” Richie sounds interested, clearly wanting her to continue. “Mrs. K finally loosening the reins a bit?”

“No,” she says quickly. “No, and that’s the fucking problem. I can’t hurt her, Richie. I can’t go against her wishes.” 

“Are you fucking kidding me, Edie? You do that all the fucking time. You’re doing it right now! Fuck her, I’m serious Eds, fuck her. You’re a fucking amazing runner, Mike talks about it when you’re not with us. And you _love it_.”

She sighs. “Richie, you know it’s not that simple—”

Richie grabs her glasses and shoves them on. She rolls onto her back, squishing up against Edie and looking her determinedly in the eye. 

“You touched me last night and I felt like I couldn’t breathe, and you know how emotionally constipated I am, Edie. But you made me feel like my bones were made of jelly and you took off your fucking clothes like it was nothing—”

“ _Richie_ —”

“No,” she says sternly. “No, I’m not done. Buttfuck Nowhere, Maine and you still did that. I don’t know what my parents would do but your mother would fucking send you off to some bullshit camp and you know it, but you did it anyway and that’s fucking brave, Eds.”

“Shut the fuck up, Trashmouth, I—”

Richie clamps her hand over Edie’s mouth. “I’m not done, asshole. You’re an evil genius thinking of all these ways to just live your life like a normal teenager without your mom breathing down your neck, and you know what I think? Fuck. Her. Join the fucking track team and tell her to suck it, it’s your life. Just do that, Eds. Just do that for yourself.” 

She pulls Richie’s hand off her mouth. “It’s not that simple.”

It hurts to say it. It hurts to see Richie’s face fall. To see her disappointed. 

And it hurts the most because she knows Richie’s right. But she loves her mom and doesn’t want to hurt _her_ , though she is her own person. She shouldn’t have to live her life with a leash around her neck, her mom at the end of it pulling her every which way _she_ wants her to go.

“But—but maybe I’ll try? Because you’re right. I—I need to do stuff for me. Sometimes.” 

Richie pinches her arm. “Not sometimes, more often, dipshit.” 

“Fuck you!” She pinches her back and Richie squeals. 

“Assault! This is assault!” 

Edie laughs, quickly rolling away from Richie’s hands and off the bed. 

She picks up Richie’s t-shirt from yesterday and puts it on. 

“Oh Eds, please—”

“ _Don’t_ call me that—”

“Do not. Please, Edie.” She slumps back against the bed, pretending to faint. Edie just picks up her skirt and tucks the shirt into it. 

“You think your parents will notice?” She asks, and Richie cracks an eye open. 

“Nah,” she gets up and walks to her dresser, pulling out a pair of sweats and a clean shirt. “They don’t care enough about that shit. Even if they did, I could just say you spilled some shit on your shirt and forgot a spare.” 

Edie nods, watching Richie close the window and hide her smokes again. 

“Now,” she says, gripping the door knob. “I imagine good old Mags is making us some traditional post Tozier-Kaspbrak Sleepover breakfast that we simply _must_ attend.”

She flings the door open, curtsying and wildly gesturing for Edie to leave the room. “After you, my liege.” 

Edie rolls her eyes.

*

“Mom?” Richie calls as they come down the stairs. 

“Rachel.” Maggie says when walk into the kitchen. 

“Ohh breakfast?”

Richie pulls on Edie’s arm, dragging her to where Maggie stands at the stove, attending to a pan that Edie thinks is full of scrambled eggs. 

“Breakfast for girls who set the table,” Maggie says, and Richie groans. 

She drags Edie over to the cupboard, her hand still gripping her arm.

“Good morning, Mrs. Tozier,” Edie says while Richie piles plates into her arms. 

“Good morning, Edie,” She smiles at her. “How did you sleep?” 

She shrugs. “Not bad. Could have been better if this one didn’t kick like a toddler all night.” 

Maggie laughs and Richie gasps loudly. 

“I do say, my dear, that is _slander_! Slander, I do say!” 

Edie shakes her head. “Not your best, Richie.”

“You wound me.” 

“Better than inflating your giant ego.” 

Maggie chuckles and Richie spins around, a hand clutched to her chest. “Mom!”

“I’m not supposed to play favourites,” Maggie says, and points at Edie. “But you better keep her around, Rach.”

Richie turns back to Edie, grinning. 

“Oh, I plan on it.” 

Edie hopes Maggie doesn’t notice her blushing. 

*

On Monday morning, Mike is at the track before Edie. 

“How was your weekend?” 

“Spent it with Richie. You?”

Mike grins. “I live on a farm, Edie. But nice to hear you’re getting it on with Richie.”

“Oh fuck off Mike, I’m not _getting it on_ with anyone.” Edie bites her lip. “But I am joining the track team.” 

Mike’s eyes go wide, and then he cheers, pumping a fist in the air. “Edith fucking Kaspbrak! _Finally_!”

He pulls her into a hug. “What made your mom come around?”

“Nothing,” Edie says. “I’m doing it because I want to do it.”

“I’m proud of you,” he says, arms tightening around her. 

Edie can feel it, and doesn’t brush it off as nothing like she usually would. She thinks about what Richie said to her, warm against her front and smelling sweet. 

She gives Mike a squeeze. “Yeah, I think I’m proud of me too.”

**Author's Note:**

> title from out of the woods by taylor swift. 
> 
> [here](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1BFd1b24T0PqRfNBMSRXWE?si=7ClI9hupSzGWfMLbWHHjIg) is a playlist for this fic. 
> 
> find me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/obsessivemoody). 
> 
> you can like/reblog this on [tumblr](https://obsessivelymoody.tumblr.com/post/611352920538202112/when-the-sun-came-up-i-was-looking-at-you) if you want.


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